WE have always found the lives of great pioneer missionaries of special interest. They were men inspired by love to Christ and their fellowmen. The tremendous difficulties they had to face, the courage with which they faced them, and the slow but sure turning of the wilderness into a fruitful garden make a fascinating appeal to the mind and lead it captive as the various incidents in the career of these noted men are narrated by their biographers. This holds as true of Robert Moffat and his devoted and courageous wife as of any of the great missionaries of the Cross. The carrying of the blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ to the coloured, benighted races of South Africa was a work of love to him, and during the long period he laboured at Kuruman he was privileged to see the desert both literally and spiritually turned into a fruitful garden.
Robert Moffat was born at Ormiston, in East Lothian, 21st December 1795. Two years later his father removed to Portsoy, near Banff, where he had been appointed to a post in the custom-house. In 1806 the family settled at Carronshore, near Falkirk. At the age of fourteen, Robert was apprenticed to John Robertson, Parkhill, Polmont, a gardener. Here he had a Spartan training. Along with the other apprentices, he was turned out at four in the morning in winter to dig the hard ground. When his apprenticeship was finished he found employment in the gardens of the Earl of Moray at Donibristle. In about twelve months’ time he turned his face southwards to Cheshire, where he received a post as under gardener from Mr Leigh, High Leigh. Robert Moffat long afterwards described the parting with his mother on this occasion, for it had made a deep impression on his heart and mind. “When we came within sight of the spot where we were to part,” he says, “perhaps never to meet again in this world, she said, ‘Now, my Robert, let us stand here for a few minutes, for I wish to ask one favour of you before we part, and I know you will not refuse to do what your mother asks.’ ‘What is it mother?’ I asked. ‘Do promise me first that you will do what I am now going to ask, and I shall tell you.’ ‘No, mother, I cannot until you tell me what your wish is.’ ‘O, Robert, can you think for a moment that I shall ask you, my son, to do anything that is not right? Do I not love you?’ ‘Yes, mother, I know you do; but I do not like to make promises which I may not be able to fulfil.’ I kept my eyes fixed on the ground. I was silent, trying to resist the rising emotion. She sighed deeply. I lifted up my eyes and saw the big tears running down the cheeks that were wont to press mine. I was conquered, and as soon as I could recover speech, I said, ‘O, mother! ask what you will and I shall do it.’ ‘I only ask you whether you will read a chapter in the Bible every morning and another every evening.’ I interrupted by saying—’Mother, you know I read my Bible.’ ‘I know you do, but you do not read it regularly, or as a duty you owe to God, its Author.’ And she added—’Now I shall return home with a happy heart, inasmuch as you have promised to read the Scriptures daily. O, Robert, my son, read much in the New Testament. Read much in the Gospels—the blessed Gospels. Then you cannot well go astray. If you pray, the Lord Himself will teach you.'” Robert Moffat never forgot the promise he made on this day of parting with his affectionate mother.
It was during his sojourn at High Leigh that the great change in his life took place when he was turned from darkness to light. He had a severe struggle. When the Spirit of God began to strive with him, Satan suggested to him that he should go headlong into sin, and then if converted the change would be so manifest that he would be sure of it. This was a cunningly-laid plan of the devil. But he was mercifully saved out of the enemy’s snare. “I looked over the awful precipice down which I was about to leap,” he says, “and trembled at the thought that I might perish in my sins.” He then tried to pray more earnestly, but a dark cloud seemed to hover between his soul and God. He studied his Bible with increased earnestness, and one night while reading the Epistle to the Romans the wonderful message of that most wonderful epistle seemed to be altogether new to him as if he had never read it before. Each passage was sending a ray of light into his darkened soul. “The Book of God, the precious, undying Bible,” he says, “seemed to be laid open, and I saw at once what God had done for the sinner and what was required of the sinner to obtain divine favour and the assurance of eternal life. I felt that, being justified by faith, I had peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.” Some time after his conversion his thoughts were turned to the mission field, and it became an overmastering passion that he should devote his life to the carrying of the Gospel to the benighted heathen. Soon after his conversion he passed out of the employment of Mr Leigh into that of a Mr Smith, a nursery gardener of Dukinfield. It was here he met his future wife, Mary, daughter of his employer, who proved to be a help-meet in the highest and best sense. The parents were reluctant to part with their daughter, but at length yielded, and Mary Smith was permitted, with the good wishes of her parents, to go out to Africa to spend her life there as a devoted wife and worker with her husband. It was proposed first of all that Moffat should go out to the South Seas with John Williams, but as one of the directors of the London Missionary Society considered them too young to go together, it was decided that Moffat should go to South Africa. He was twenty-one years at this time. He reached Cape Town in 1817. Moffat met with some opposition from the Government officials to begin with, but on this opposition being withdrawn, he, along with his colleague, Mr Kitchingman and Mrs Kitchingman, set off on their long and adventurous trek to Namaqualand. There were no railways in those days, and modern means of transit were unknown. The wagon with its long team of oxen was the missionary’s only chariot. Prowling beasts of prey still roamed where they are unknown to-day. After leaving Mr and Mrs Kitchingman at Bysondersmeid, Moffat went on alone with the native driver and servants. The country was as yet unexplored. The roads got worse and worse. They entered a trackless stretch of country, where the oxen had the utmost difficulty of pulling the heavy wagon through the deep sand. The men were exhausted with dreadful thirst and fatigue. The oxen were unable to proceed. An effort was made by digging a deep hole in the sand to get some water, and to their joy they were successful in getting a little, “which was drunk,” says Moffat, “with an avidity no pen can describe.” The sand was now glowing in a meridian sun, and so hot that it was painful to walk on it. The oxen became frantic and stampeded. They came to a halt at a place where there was a little shade; here they stood to cool their burning hoofs. Notwithstanding these trials, the trekkers reached the mission station of Pella, and then passed on over the Orange River. The wagon was taken to pieces and conveyed across the stream on rafts. The journey was resumed, after the crossing of the river which took several days, until they came to Africaner’s kraal at Vredeberg. Africaner was a petty chief, the terror of the white and coloured races. The very mention of his name made everybody in those parts tremble. The story of his conversion is one of the most encouraging in the annals of missionary effort. This man, in the very high day of his power, was visited by Mr Ebner, one of the Pella missionaries, and was brought to his knees through the presentation of the Gospel. The news of his conversion had not reached Cape Colony, and the Dutch farmers pitied Moffat when they learned of his intention to go to Africaner’s kraal. They usually took a solemn farewell of him, one woman adding the anything but encouraging words—”Had you been an old man, it would be nothing, for you would soon have died whether or no; but you are young, and going to become a prey to that monster.” These fears were groundless, for Africaner received the young missionary with evident pleasure, and expressed a hope that Moffat would live long with them. His colleague Ebner soon went south, and Moffat was left alone. The loneliness at times was overwhelming. In referring to this overmastering feeling, he pulls himself up by adding—”But the cause is the Lord’s, and how can we be faint or weary in well-doing, while we witness immortal souls dying for lack of knowledge.” He found his multifarious duties distracting. “I am carpenter, smith, cooper, tailor, shoemaker, miller, baker, and housekeeper,” he writes, “the last is the most burdensome of any. An old Namaqua woman milks my cows, makes a fire and washes. All other things I do myself, though I seldom prepare anything till impelled by hunger. I drink plenty of milk, and often eat a piece of dry flesh. Lately I reaped nearly two bolls of wheat from two hatfuls which I sowed. This is of great help to me. I shall soon have plenty of Indian corn, cabbage, melons, potatoes. Water is scarce. I have sown wheat a second time on trial. I live chiefly now on bread and milk.” It was during this early period of his missionary life that Moffat was stricken down with a raging fever. On recovering from the delirium whose eyes should be looking on his face, full of sympathy and tenderness, but those of that erstwhile terror of men—Africaner. As an indication of the greatness of the change wrought by divine grace, Moffat’s testimony is worth quoting:—”During the whole period I lived there I do not remember having occasion to be grieved with him or to complain of any part of his conduct.” Titus, the brother of Africaner, “a fearful example of ungodliness,” is Moffat’s characterisation of him, was not converted until late in life, but notwithstanding, he and Moffat were great friends. When the missionary would speak to him about his soul, Titus would say to him:—”I hear what you say and I think sometimes and understand, but my heart will not feel.” Moffat was dissatisfied with the place of the Mission Station, and determined to set out towards Griqualand. This was a most adventurous journey and nearly cost the missionary his life. The exploring party kept to the north of the Orange River, and after seven days’ journey they reached a place called Kwees (near the present site of Upington), and from there they struck across the waterless country to Griqua Town. On the second day, Moffat and one of the men became separated from the rest and went on alone, with no food in their pockets, and no water. For three days they had eaten nothing. In his dreams at night Moffat slaked his thirst at beautiful fountains of cooling water, but on wakening from his sleep he was speechless with thirst. Tantalised with the dreams by night and the delusive mirage by day, they reached Griqua Town on the fourth day more dead than alive. On their return journey they were overtaken by a tempest. Hail and piercing wind chilled them to the bone. They lay down on the drenched ground and slept as only tired men can. A scorching day succeeded a tempestuous night, and before sunset they would have paid any money for a bottle of the water with which they had been drenched the night before. They reached home at last, and as a result of the report they gave to Africaner it was agreed they should remain where they were for a time at any rate.
(To be continued.)